“I found it strange that neither I nor the day seemed in a mourning mood and I felt even annoyed at discovering in myself a sensation of freedom as if I had been freed from something by his death” (Joyce 5).
Paraphrase:
This statement was from the first Chapter of Dubliners entitled “The Sisters”, written by James Joyce. Here, the narrator is a young boy who befriended the priest named Father Flynn, who had just died. The boy expressed his strange feelings when he learned that Father Flynn, his mentor had passed away after suffering from three strokes and paralysis. The boy felt surprised that instead of feeling devastation, he felt relieved after hearing the news from his uncle that Father Flynn died.
Analysis:
In the statement, the term “strange and annoyed” means that the boy at odds with himself because knowing that he should be feeling grief over the loss of a mentor, he instead finds himself feeling a sense of liberation or freedom over his passing. The author used irony since there is a contradiction in the tone of the boy’s statement because instead of mourning over the death of a loved one, he instead felt that he was being freed from the emotional lock of Father Flynn on him. Here, the boy felt spiritual strain as the priest presents the church doctrines that are contradicting his own personal beliefs. The can be substantiated when the boy said “ The duties of the priest towards the Eucharist and towards the secrecy of the confessional seemed so grave to me that I wondered how anybody had ever found in himself the courage to undertake them” (Joyce 8).
The line “a sensation of freedom as if I had been freed from something by his death” means that the boy has is frustrated at himself for feeling relieved that after learning that Father Flynn had died. While in the line, “Neither I nor the day seemed in a mourning mood”, the author used syllepsis, which is considered as a type of zeugma, wherein the two phrases are joined by a common verb. Instead of grieving over his death, the boy was in a cheerful disposition just like the mood that day as he “walked away slowly along the sunny side of the street, reading all the theatrical advertisements in the shop-windows as I went” (Joyce 8). The boy regards Father Flynn as a priest with strange behavior because he asked difficult questions to him as the interrogation puts a physical strain on him by saying “Sometimes he had amused himself by putting difficult questions to me, asking me what one should do in certain circumstances or whether such and such sins were mortal or venial or only imperfections” (Joyce 8).
The author felt that the doctrines of the church have caused a strain on the relationship of the boy, as his student and Father Flynn, who was supposed to be his mentor. This was explained in the line “His questions showed me how complex and mysterious were certain institutions of the Church which I had always regarded as the simplest acts” (Joyce 8). This brings the audience to a conclusion that the boy believed that the teachings of the Catholic Church were only simple acts but Father Flynn makes them appear complicated. The priest is a representation of the corrupt features of the church as he forced to boy to follow the Catholic doctrines in the line “Sometimes he used to put me through the responses of the Mass which he had made me learn by heart; and, as I pattered” (Joyce 8). Therefore, the boy is only showing a superficial mourning over the death of Father Flynn because deep inside, he feels a sense of relief or liberation after the priest died. The control of the priest over the boy has finally ended, and the boy is now free and can live peacefully.
Commentary:
In the both the first chapter of Dubliners entitled “The Sisters” and the last chapter entitled “The Dead”, the common theme is about death. In the first chapter, the boy was only mourning of the boy over the death of the priest is superficial. While in the last chapter, the main character Gabriel learned that his wife Gretta was still grieving over the loss of a past lover. He felt that even though he is the one alive, the memories of the past lover lived on described in the line “So she had had that romance in her life: a man had died for her sake. It hardly pained him now to think how poor a part he, her husband, had played in her life” (Joyce 151). The chapter leaves an open ended possibility that Gabriel may transform his attitude and will learn to embrace life. In the first chapter and the last chapter of the Dubliners, the author gave an emphasis on the importance of being able to break away from the past and cherishing the present moment.
Bibliography:
Joyce, James. “The Sisters.” Dubliners. Ed. Jeri Johnson. New York: Oxford UP, 2008
